The duo that cannot be stopped – queer filmmaker Matt Lambert and designer-cum-muse Michèle Lamy – stand at the coalface of the avant-garde, creating the steamiest film saga this side of the century. Here, the boundaries between adult and arthouse cinema are all but redundant.
First acquainted when Matt collaborated with Michèle’s husband Rick Owens on his SS17 collection, the twosome returns with their third offering, Infinite II, a white-hot medley of performance art and dance, backdropped with volcanic strobes and a thundering soundtrack by Arca, Ryoji Ikeda and Lavascar, Michèle and her daughter Scarlett Rouge’s band.
Shot in Berlin’s Julia Stoschek Collection, an austere 60s art space, the film sees Michèle lead a ceremony of writhing bodies, each one worshiping at her altar. Dressed in a hellfire-red Comme des Garçons frock, the gold-toothed sorceress orates the words of poet Etel Adnan as her biding audience clambers closer.
On the heels of Infinite, a black-and-white series of crazed scenes following Michèle and choreographer MJ Harper across the Parisian outskirts, this new short goes harder on the NSFW content. That said, it’s a far cry from their first outing, Butt Muscle (2017), which saw Michèle and drag artist Christeene French kissing while the latter gave Rick a golden shower.
Together, Matt and Michèle bring a wealth of experience only life on the margins of acceptability could. For Matt, that’s a back catalogue of films spanning cybersex, the follies of youth and the awkwardness of queer sex. For Michèle, it’s a disparate thread of vocations, from practicing as a defense attorney and her heady days performing strip tease, to sitting at the helm of the Owenscorp enterprise.
Now, with exclusive access to Infinite II — before an NFT of the project drops at 12pm EST today, available for just 72 hours on Zora — we caught up with the duo to hear more about their new film, first encounters and sexual energy.
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Joe Bobowicz: What’s the backstory behind Infinite II?
Matt Lambert: We decided to release Infinite I – which came out recently – with another performance [Infinite II]. Again, it was just a way for us to keep getting dirty together.
Michèle Lamy: Exactly.
Matt: Michèle and I’ve done enough together. I think we finally started to get each other. The reason it’s called Infinite II is because, hopefully, there’s going to be an infinite series of collaborations that have a similar format, with Michèle at the centre. There was this line from Etel Adnan we used where Michèle says, “To chase the Pacific horizons, I need an infinity of lives.” It explores this idea of performance being a way someone’s energy can live forever.
Michèle: She also said that “Travel is infinite; the traveler is not,” and we are trying to make both infinite.
Joe: The film is described as a “reincarnation of sexual spirit.” Why?
Matt: As an observer and friend, I think people are a bit intimidated by Michèle, so they end up shooting the same photo. It’s like: the fingers, the teeth… It becomes this reductive thing where everyone wants to have that Michèle photo. The first time we worked together, I had her naked, covered in gallons of lube. That sexual spirit never dies, and presenting Michèle’s sexual energy is something few have done.
Michèle: You are the specialist of sexuality. The way you do it and show it, it’s the way I feel. But it’s not pornography, or puritan. Alors, it’s a spirit. I think Etel Adnan would have been of that same spirit.
Joe: In the film, there’s a maternal narrative at play. Could you talk about that?
Michèle: I think it’s an image of Mother Earth trying to blow life into the kids, then getting it back. That’s the thing, it was maternal but very sensual. The way it should be.
Matt: For me, too. I see Michèle as a sister, but there’s a mother energy. Michèle and Rick work with an organisation called Cinema Galleggiante, it’s a floating cinema in Giudecca. Two summers ago, I curated for them. The theme was motherhood – so, I screened Infinite I and this other film [Brist, 2021]. It was clear motherhood was a broader term.
Michèle: There’s a motherhood with mixed genders – you don’t know when one starts and the other finishes.
Matt: It’s this cyclical nature of energy, which also happened with the performers in this film.
Michèle: Physically, you showed this, because when I was standing on that wobbly table and had all those boys against me – very sensual – I wasn’t really steady. I was like the mother there, but I was ready to fall into them.
Joe: You two first met when Rick had asked to use an image from Matt’s porn zine Vitium, right?
Matt: I came to the house because he invited me over for dinner and it was just Michèle and Gareth Pugh sitting alone in this room listening to techno. Rick wasn’t there. After dinner, there was a photo of Christeene on the wall. At that time, a lot of people didn’t know Christeene and I was shocked that they knew.
Michèle: Yeah, then you organised Berghain.
Matt: Yeah, I produced a Christeene concert at Berghain. We wrote a performance piece with Michèle, featuring Tosh Basco, and Vaginal Davis was the opening DJ. Michèle descended from the stage and walked through the crowd reciting the words of Etel.
Michèle: Yeah, already, there was rubbing and bodies. We always do a lot of rubbing.
Matt: The performance finished with Michèle getting thrown in a Comme Des Garcons cocoon straitjacket over the shoulders of the dancers and being dragged out the club, laughing maniacally while the audio played for five minutes in darkness.
Joe: Your first film, Butt Muscle, was more explicit, featuring ten-inch dildos. How does this new film tie in with that?
Matt: In Butt Muscle, I was tapping into the mother-daughter relationship with these moments of Christeene being fisted while Michèle was laying there petting her head. In Infinite I, MJ Harper was the foil to Michèle. In the third piece, Infinity II, it’s Michèle with this whole group, in full shamanistic form.
Joe: What does it take to push each other creatively?
Matt: Trust?
Michèle: For sure, he’s pushing me. I don’t know how, but it’s something I’ve felt since those performances with Lavascar. At the same time, there is a lot of seduction with Matt.
Matt: Aww!
Michèle: When he tells me what we’re going to do, I don’t question it. I’m trying to be in the story. We exchange ideas, too. You know, when I told him about Etel Adnan. It’s just like one word – we don’t need more – and we know what to do.
Matt: The thing is, I come from film production, and everything is so regimented, but I realised if everything’s too defined, it’s boring for Michèle. We learned to leave space for intuition. At the end of the day, Michèle’s taste is second to none.
Michèle: Yeah, and we are attracted to the same people. You know my daughter, Scarlett [Rouge]? Her babysitter in LA was Vaginal Davis. That was pre-Rick Owens. And the thing is, there’s a continuity. There is a tribe. I think it’s why we understand each other.
Matt: We’re looking at the same things, but she also shows me things.
Michèle: And vice versa.
Credits
Infinite II – Courtesy of Matt Lambert, Michèle Lamy and Entropy.